


What Christmas Tastes Like

by renascensory



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bullying, Crossdressing, F/F, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Minor Niijima Makoto/Okumura Haru, Roommates, Takamaki Ann-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28125363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renascensory/pseuds/renascensory
Summary: (Late for) Day #3: Holiday DinnersShuake holiday softness, but make it Ann's POV?
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist, Suzui Shiho/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109
Collections: 21 plus akeshuake server yuletide 2020 event





	What Christmas Tastes Like

The first Christmas Ann can remember, she was five years old and living in Finland. 

Her memories from that age are mostly foggy and disjointed, but Santa Park is honestly unforgettable. Finland, Iceland, Switzerland... a lot of the places she lived in and visited had a fairytale quality to them. Pictures from back then look more like her and her parents were edited into paintings than family photos. 

Santa Park is a tourist attraction in Northern Finland—its address is quite literally in the Arctic Circle. The search results don’t do it justice; at least, that’s what Ann says whenever she talks about visiting as a kid. 

Although, she  _ also _ thought that she met the  _ real  _ Santa Claus there. She told other kids as much until she was ten years old and still kind of privately believed it for a few years after that.

But more than meeting Santa and his elves, more than the ice caves and the genuine-article reindeer, she can remember sitting down to dinner next to her mom, across from her dad, at a restaurant that specialized in local cuisine. Ann thinks about that Christmas and she’s back on a vinyl booth seat, bouncing in excitement, twisting her pigtails around her fingers and having her mom swat her hands away from the new hair ties she got as a present that morning. She remembers wrinkling her nose at the herring and rye bread put down in front of her, her parents laughing, and her smiling, and then being too busy basking in their company to realize how salty it was until she was on her second bite.

It’s not typical Japanese at all—she never developed the intense feeling about fried chicken on Christmas that so many of her countrymen seem to share—but that’s what Christmas tastes like to her. Bilberries stuffed into tarts, cakes and crepes filled with mousses and jams. Salmon every way you can eat it; smoked, grilled, raw. It’s having a fork-tender piece of bear meat from a hearty stew fall apart in her mouth while she looks out the window and sees the Northern Lights painted across the night sky.

⸻⸻⸻

Her family technically, officially moved back to Japan three years later, but her parents never stopped travelling. All three of them went abroad for the holidays every year.

One year they went to London and spent almost four consecutive hours in Harrods. She got a ‘Christmas Bear’ with the year embroidered on the foot, and she was obsessed with it all day. It was white bear with a green jacket and a red border along the zipper; a shiny, silver tab that Ann kept pulling up and down throughout dinner. The only thing she liked  _ more _ than the zipper was the even tinier white bear sticking out of the pocket of the main bear’s jacket. Ann loved it, plainly and simply.

There’s a photo of her and her parents with Santa hats on, standing on the beach in Fiji. They did the same pose a year later in Mombasa.

Another year they were in New York City and Ann was extremely tired; they flew in on the 23rd day and her jet lag was out of control. It wasn’t the most magical out of all the places she’s been—especially if you consider the literally out-of-this-world landscapes from the palaces—but her exhaustion put an almost waxy, surreal filter over her memories.

From time to time, she had dreams of being at the edge of the ice rink in Central Park. The skaters would move in slow motion until she got closer to them, then they would whip away, caught in a strong current. All she could hear was indistinct, muffled chatter but no other noise, like the city had sunk to the bottom of an ocean of snow. 

Ann’s parents would swim past the corners of her vision, and she would hear her dad’s rumbling baritone and her mom’s wild laughter. A flash of his hair (salt-and-pepper for as long as Ann could remember, usually in a ponytail) and hers (riotous blond waves rolling over her shoulders, iconically stylish at every length over the years) as they glided arm-in-arm between other skating couples.

She was never afraid in those dreams, or worried about not being able to catch up to them. A sprinkle of dream logic and a dash of affectionate resignation made it so that she was content just knowing that they were safe and happy at her periphery. Not scared, not resentful, not lost without them. A little lonely, maybe, but that’s all. She kept her eyes on the other skaters as they sailed over the ice, darting away from her like shoals of fish. 

When she woke up from those dreams, she was usually smiling.

As she grew up and out of childhood, her relationship with her parents grew to resemble her dreams more and more. By 15, she lived in a family home with no family in it. One or both of them ‘swung through town’ periodically. Sometimes they remembered to tell her before they landed at Narita.  _ Sometimes  _ when plans changed their arrival time or date or whether they were coming at all, it occurred to them to let her know. They would apologize, send a gift, and she could never stay mad.

Lonely, maybe, sometimes. But she kept busy and smiled so prettily that people started paying her to do it.

⸻⸻⸻

The first Christmas Ann spent in Japan, she royally pissed off some kind of junior high school queen bee in 2-A by accepting an invitation from the girl’s boyfriend to a class Christmas party.

It felt like some kind of cruel, cosmic joke at every step. 

On Monday, Takao-kun tapped her shoulder with a mechanical pencil and asked if she had heard about the party on Friday. She had not. He said each class was doing something different right after clubs let out, but later that evening, the whole year was going to meet up on the roof of the practice building. She said that sounded cool. He said she should come, it’s going to be fun. She said okay.

On Tuesday, everywhere Ann went, she heard whispered rumors that Hanazawa Ichika was out sick from school because  _ her heart  _ had been  _ broken _ by her boyfriend cheating on her. 

Ann sympathized, even if she couldn’t relate. She had received a few love notes and confessions but she wasn’t interested in dating just yet. She was starting to do small modeling jobs off-and-on after school, and the idea of having to answer questions from a photographer, make-up artist, set designer, any of those glossy, stylish adults about her ‘boyfriend’… It made something in her chest twist uneasily, like her heart and her stomach were having the stand-off before a brawl. She just wasn’t in any rush to start going out with guys like that.

On Wednesday, she found out Takao-kun was the two-timing boyfriend—she heard him mention ‘Chika-chan’ before but hadn’t made the connection—which didn’t generally align with the impression she had of him. Oh well. None of her business.

On Thursday, Hanazawa came back to school and it became clear that this very much indeed was going to be Ann’s business. The generally-accepted version of events was that  _ Ann  _ started the conversation, that she had actually had been dropping hints for weeks, and  _ apparently _ she wasn’t going to go to the party unless Takao left Hanazawa for her. Funny that she didn’t remember any of that, given how everyone else seemed prepared to believe it. It didn’t seem to matter that Takao-kun didn’t technically  _ invite _ her to the party, he just  _ informed _ her about it. Takao, in fact, carried no blame whatsoever, compared to Ann. Gossip made a caricature of her and drew devil horns on it.

The number of people willing to talk to her shrank considerably. Boys with girlfriends stayed as far away from Ann as reasonably possible. Boys  _ without _ girlfriends seemed to take pleasure asserting just how  _ not _ interested in Ann they were, or they talked openly about what  _ exact _ parts of her they liked. Their brazen, crude, quasi-compliments were for the benefit of their audience: middle school girls already inclined towards feeling jealous and competitive.

By the time lunch rolled around on Friday, an open can of soda had been dumped in her school bag, a dozen mean notes had made their way into her desk, and her indoor shoes had gone missing.

So she ate lunch alone in a small, unused courtyard behind the back corner of the school. Only one door led directly out to that space, and it was locked most of the time, so Ann brushed some of the dirt off of the steps leading up to it and sat down. She vacillated between radioactive anger and a cold void of feelings toward the whole situation, until she heard someone calling her name.

A boy from her class jogged over. “Hey! These are your shoes, right?” he said. She blinked.  _ What was his name again? _ He was in a sports club, right? Always sprinted out the classroom door at the first opportunity...  _ Sakamoto-kun? _ He shook the shoes at her. “Yo... Aren’t you Takamaki Ann? And that’s what the strap says, right? Yeah. So these are yours? They were in the trash, but I grabbed them before anything landed on… huh? ...Wait, you  _ are _ Takamaki-san, right? Oh shit—woah, was it something I said?! Don’t cry!”

But she did. A lot. And told him that it wasn’t him, it was everything else. Then she told him about all of the everything else going on, in a rant that ranged from angry to lonely, disgusted to sad, frustrated to... nothing. Once she got it all out, she felt purged of emotion, like she’d been wiped clean or wrung dry.

Sakamoto started out wide-eyed, horrified, nodding like a hostage at gunpoint, but by the end he was lounging on the stairs next to her.

“I’m sorry for dumping all of that on you,” she said, staring blankly out across the dilapidated courtyard. “I’m just tired.”

“Tired of Hanazawa?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“No, just like… Tired of people acting like just because I’m  _ one quarter _ non-Japanese, I’m some kind of foreign invader. Or like having blonde hair means I must be a succubus, y’know? They talk about me like they seriously don’t realize I’m a  _ person _ . Or like they forget we speak the same language and I actually  _ can _ hear them and understand what they’re saying about me. The stuff some of these guys say about my body is just, like. Gross. And some of the girls are even worse.”

He nodded, looking pensive, then offered a pearl of middle-school-boy wisdom: “People suck.”

They parted ways when lunch ended. There was no promise, implicit or otherwise, to hang out again. No threats to ensure silence. Just one person seeing another in distress and deciding to help lighten the load. The bullying was an isolated incident. The rumors didn’t come back with the same intensity in January, but they didn’t completely go away, either.

That would have gone down in the books as just a shitty last week of school before Christmas, if not for what Sakamoto did between school letting out and the class party. Ann wasn’t even sure why she bothered showing up, aside from her international friends’ texts encouraging her to kick the doors down and strut in with her head held high. She only went for the part on the roof so maybe,  _ maybe _ , she might have an opportunity to drop the truth on Hanazawa and ask her to  _ stop making shit up for attention _ in front of witnesses.

In the end Ann couldn’t even remember if Hanazawa was  _ there _ or not, because that completely stopped mattering when Sakamoto Ryuji emerged from the stairs, onto the roof, with freshly-bleached blond hair. That was the first time, but far from the last, that Ann shouted, “RYUJI!” over an entire crowd of people. 

A jostle of fellow jocks gathered around Sakamoto and took turns touching his hair, then started joking about making him go bald by rubbing the top of his head. None of them batted an eye when Ann finished critiquing his at-home dye-job and proceeded to stand around, trading jokingly barbed words and jabbed elbows with Ryuji. When a late-comer to the group arrived with a bag full of convenience store snacks, she was handed a custard-filled taiyaki like it was the normalest thing in the world. And she wasn’t a demon or a foreigner or even that most mysterious, elusive of creatures: a dateable girl. 

That was the best present Ryuji ever gave her—space to just  _ be _ without question or commentary. (He was, it turned out, objectively abysmal at giving gifts otherwise.)

⸻⸻⸻

The one Christmas Ann practically  _ can’t _ remember, she fought a God alongside the best friends she’s ever had and they saved the world. Or at least Tokyo, but it felt like the world. Her brain always trips over that year if she tries to think back through recent Christmases. There was no big meal, no presents, no trip to join her parents for a week at a ski chalet in the Swiss alps. Just the pulsing, collective heart of humanity, and a pack of teens fighting to stop it from succumbing to corruption.

That was five years ago.

⸻⸻⸻

In her third year of high school Ann ramped up her modeling work and hit the ground running. She outgrew her agency, signed with a new one, and started taking international gigs. She left school on Thursdays and Fridays to go to the airport and staggered in on Mondays and Tuesdays with jetlag whiplash. Near the end of the year, she was given permission to take a few weekends off, as long as she worked through the holidays.

So she set up a webcam in her hotel room, got food delivered, and did a video call with her parents… then another video call right after, with the Phantom Thieves.

_ It’s great to see them, _ she thought. _ It really is. They’re all together. _ She was almost positive she wasn’t the only one who was going to be out of town on Christmas but plans must have changed, and that’s great. 

They were all in Leblanc, and Futaba set up some crazy camera rig, because Ann could drag her mouse around on the screen and see  _ everyone _ . Yusuke held up his sketchbook to the camera and Haru asked for the best address to send her a dubious-looking fruitcake with candied vegetables. Morgana complimented her most recent work—somehow he’s always the first to see it—and told her about the mean local cats in Akira’s hometown. Steam started pouring out of Makoto’s ears when she saw Ann take a sip of wine, but the legal drinking age in France is, “like  _ twelve _ , ‘officer Nijima,’ jeez.” Futaba bullied Ryuji into reenacting a fight scene from the new Featherman OVA, and Sumire took the villain role surprisingly seriously once she got roped in. On the other side of the action, Akira stood behind the counter, ever their smiling, silent leader. 

As if he could tell she was looking at him, Akira raised his hand in a little wave, then pushed up his glasses, and for a second it’s a domino mask and nothing’s changed and they’ve  _ just  _ won and they’re all safe, all whole, all together. Ann was so happy and she ached to be with them so much, she had to pretend to get a phone call and go cry in the bathroom. 

She swore a private oath that she’d put down a hard limit from now on: Ann Takamaki takes the holidays off. She wasn’t just trying to be like any other model, she wanted to be a  _ role _ model. If she was going to inspire people, she had to keep practicing what she wanted to preach: giving yourself permission to take breaks and enjoy things; letting the people who love you lend a hand or an ear or a shoulder to cry on; and figuring out for yourself what strength means to you.

⸻⸻⸻

The first Christmas after Ann left high school, she and Yusuke were vegetarians.

Over the summer another model told her that meat and dairy were way,  _ way _ more calorie-dense than vegetables, so without them, you can eat way  _ more  _ by volume without gaining weight. That model might have actually been talking about going  _ vegan _ , not vegetarian, but Ann already drank soy milk and didn’t eat much cheese, so she decided to carve out a few exceptions for dairy. Like, crepes!  _ Whipped cream has a lot of air in it, so it was less, like,  _ physically  _ dense, even if it’s more calorically-dense. It evens out. _

In the fall Yusuke got on board for financial reasons. Ann pointed out that the meatless options on a restaurant menu were cheaper than the meat-based ones and said she thought she was spending less money on food overall. (Which was only true if she put ‘desserts’ in a separate category from her ‘food’ spending, technically speaking.) His compulsion to drop all his money at once on art supplies never really went away, but he did have an actual, on-paper budget… That he was  _ trying _ to follow. 

He still, on a day-to-day basis, never seemed to have any money—but for slightly different reasons. In high school, he would forget to eat for two days and then buy a box of french macarons because he wanted to recreate the exact shade of purple on the lavender one in gouache. Nowadays, he had an income and a system for hiding it from himself. Money arrived in one account, and then the amount he needed to pay bills and buy predictable things (like groceries) would automatically transfer itself out. “Out of sight, out of mind,” kept that money safe, and when he managed to avoid ending the month with a single-digit balance, he would put whatever he had left into savings.

Yusuke had  _ savings _ now, and still sometimes got stranded without enough cash to ride the train.

So they were vegetarians on Christmas.

If Ann had to rank their friends in order of most to least supportive of Ann and Yusuke’s vegetarianism, she wouldn’t hesitate to put Haru at the top. Haru texted, asking for a good mailing address to get something to Ann the next day, and then a priority-urgent-overnight, temperature-controlled package arrived with a new dish to try. Not just once. Three separate times. Once while Ann was in  _ London _ , and the shipping costs must have been astronomical.

Ann would have guessed that Ryuji would be at the bottom of the support hierarchy, but his reaction was muted compared to Futaba, who found Akira making  _ meatless, dairy-free curry _ for Yusuke and accused him of treason. And mutiny. And crimes against humanity.

That Christmas, the Phantom Thieves’ annual gathering featured: Futaba following Yusuke around and aggressively, pointedly eating fried chicken  _ at  _ him; Haru bringing a fruit salad that was rough 50% things that were, yes, biologically considered fruits, but in a culinary sense usually treated as vegetables, like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant; and Sumire and Makoto as a unified front, systematically dismantling the entire foundation of their new diet.

Turns out it’s actually more expensive to cut out entire food groups and still get all of the nutrients your body needs. It also just so happens to be a massive oversimplification, to the point of being demonstrably  _ wrong, _ to say that by cutting out calorie-dense foods, you can eat more of everything else without gaining weight. And Sumire and Makoto had a whole presentation saying so. With visual aids.

(This was also the year that Ryuji got really into mixology and then saw a video about  _ catnip tea _ but that’s a story for another time.)

Looking around, Ann would have said at the time that nothing was missing from her life. She had the kind of friends that she knew would stick with her for life; plus, Shiho and friends from overseas making her phone vibrate in her back pocket every few minutes. She couldn’t think of anything else she needed.

⸻⸻⸻

The third year after Yaldabaoth, Akechi came back. He didn’t seek  _ her _ out—didn’t seek any of the Phantom Thieves out, actually, because he arrived back in Japan in July and avoided all of them for almost five months. 

He  _ studiously  _ avoided Akira. He figured out everywhere Akira went and when, then treated those places like they were infected with the plague. Goro had always been uniquely talented when it came to anything that required single-minded, obsessive, ruthless determination, so he quickly learned how to maneuver around Tokyo without ever running into another former Persona-user.

But with how often Ann was out of the country, he  _ couldn’t  _ know her schedule. He didn’t have any way to find out where she bought groceries or liked to get takeout.

So she quite literally stumbled across him in mid-October. He looked like a cat that had fallen into a pond—he got caught in an unexpected, freezing downpour while on his bike, and it was raining so hard that he had to get off and walk it.  _ Then _ a passing car drove through a puddle and splashed a tub’s worth of water on him. 

“Please,” Ann said, having chased him into a corner and forced him under an umbrella. “This isn’t really a question and it definitely isn’t charity, but you need to come to my place and dry off. I’ve seen what your hair is supposed to be like and it’s painful to look at you right now. It’s literally around the corner.”

He agreed conditionally. As in, he said, “Fine, under certain terms and conditions,” and then he started naming what those conditions were and was still listing clauses when they arrived at Ann’s apartment.

She said, “Hold that thought,” and then shoved him into the bathroom with a dry towel and a stack of clothes that she assumed would probably fit: Akira’s fleece pajama pants (which she stole), Ryuji’s old Triple Seven hoodie (that he kept forgetting at Ann’s place after she gave him a new one for his birthday), and one of Yusuke’s T-Shirts (a back-up in case she wanted to take him somewhere and he showed up covered in paint). He emerged half an hour later wearing the mismatched outfit, somehow looking more homeless than he had before but with a healthy flush in his cheeks and a few of the ghosts chased away from his shoulders. She got him talking. She asked what a ‘dialectical’ was. She listened well enough to his impromptu philosophy seminar to keep it going. 

Five minutes later, Ann had made up her mind: someone else could be in charge of holding this guy accountable—she wasn’t interested in that. What mattered to her was the person standing in front of her, bent but unbroken, who had already been through hell and had a hard road ahead regardless of where he was going.

She told him he could move in, if he wanted. The next morning he was gone before she woke up.

By the end of the week, he had taken over her guest room.

By the end of the year, he had spent more days in the apartment than she had, given how much traveling she did for work. He left occasionally, without saying where he was going, but she appreciated that he always let her know when he was on his way back. Akechi Goro may have been a loose collection of trauma responses and contradictions, but he was a decent roommate. The only kind words he had for her came when the syrupy old voice of his public persona slipped out, and she made a point of calling him out on it every time. He could not cook, period, and whenever he forgot and tried anyway, she would order delivery pancakes as punishment. Their dynamic was faltering, antagonistic, and, Ann had to admit, surprisingly enjoyable.

One of the first moving-in conditions he listed had been, “Do not, under any circumstances, inform the others that I’m here. Or that you’ve seen me at all.” He did not want to elaborate, but he made it clear that it was a hard limit. Eventually, she figured, he would either change his mind or someone would figure it out. So she agreed not to tell and didn’t break her promise. 

Ultimately, she didn’t have to.

⸻⸻⸻

In mid-November she flew home from a shoot in Milan, and the moment her phone was off airplane mode, notifications started rolling in. Ann scrolled to the bottom so she could read them in the order that they came in.

First was a terse, overly-formal text from Akechi, asking her to call him… seven hours ago?

Six hours later, a series of texts from Makoto: asking if Ann was home, saying she wanted to swing by and drop something off, that she remembered where Ann hid the spare key but would knock first just in case. 

A missed call from Makoto not long after.

Another string of texts, in a new group chat that was—oh. Just her, Makoto, and Akechi. Ann could almost hear the words of her messages in Makoto’s prim, sensible voice, tinted with disapproval and a shade shy of bossy. She had listened to Akechi’s explanation of  _ how  _ he came to be staying at Ann’s place, but he refused to explain  _ why _ , and she wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. She would wait with him until Ann got home. 

(Then there were twenty-one missed calls from Akira and the first voicemails she had ever received from him.)

So they had to have some tense, emotional conversations—Akira was mad that Ann didn’t tell him that Goro was  _ living in her apartment _ when she  _ knew _ how hard and long he searched for Akechi. Then Yusuke off-handedly revealed that Futaba had already known for a couple weeks because Akechi ordered something online and had it delivered to Ann’s place, so then Futaba was mad at Yusuke, and Akira  _ and _ Goro were mad at Futaba. Haru was mad at Ann  _ and  _ Futaba  _ and _ Akira but instead of saying anything to them she confided privately in Makoto, and cried, and then Makoto was mad at all of them  _ and _ at Goro. Then Goro got mad at Akira for being mad at Ann. 

And then it was Christmas.

⸻⸻⸻

Their annual party got off to an awkward start but the mood thawed before long. Goro had stalwartly refused to even consider joining them, and when Akira threatened to move the party from Leblanc to Ann’s apartment (with her blessing), he countered with a threat of his own—to drop off the face of the Earth, again, and stay gone.

Akira was pouting. He hid it decently well, Ann thought, but in calm moments, when the Thieves were full of sushi and cake and camaraderie, Akira looked unsatisfied. He hovered more; cleared plates to the sink and refilled drinks faster. Before they all called it a night, she joined him behind the bar and mirrored his posture, leaning back against the shelves. He nudged her softly with his elbow and she rested her head against his shoulder.

“I think he’s scared,” she said without preamble. Akira’s small, sharp inhale and the weak chuckle that followed proved to Ann that they were already thinking of the same person. “He’s never going to say it, but I get the feeling that he’s afraid of asking for forgiveness. He doesn’t want to be rejected.”

Akira was silent but he let her tangle their fingers together when her hand sought out his.

Now that she knew to look for it, she could see how often he had to be thinking about Akechi. Akira was the most wordlessly expressive person she had ever met, which was saying something, considering how many models she came across who struggled to learn what he did naturally. All throughout the party, Akira’s gaze kept flickering toward the chair that Akechi used to sit in, and with no other change to his face, his eyes would be smiling.

“He doesn’t want to be accepted, either,” Akira said. She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. In another person’s voice, that response might have sounded defeatist, but not from the mouth of the man who faced down a god with an airsoft gun and his rebel will, and  _ won. _ Not even Akechi Goro, with all his sharp edges and an indomitable will of his own, was too much of a challenge for Akira.

More like exactly the right amount of challenge, Ann thought, when she pulled away and caught a glimpse of his expression. He had an almost Jokerlike look in his eyes, and a stubborn set to his lips, and internally, Ann didn’t know whether to say a silent prayer for her cagey roommate or just laugh as he got what was coming to him.

They already had their coats on and were ready to leave when Ryuji fished a large paper bag out from underneath one of the booths, held it up, and asked who it belonged to. No one claimed it. He looked inside and frowned at the contents.

“Didn’t we already swap gifts?” he asked, stepping aside as Makoto and Haru moved in to inspect the bag. They pulled out one small box after another and lined them up on the table until the bag was empty.

There were eight all together; different shapes, but close in size. Each one had a ribbon, with a bow and a tag. They were addressed to the Thieves by their codenames.

Makoto collected both of their boxes and steered Haru away. Futaba didn’t move, but Yusuke brought her box over to her and stood close by, examining his own from every angle. Sumire stared at the one in her hands with a rapt expression, like she was holding something incredulous, wondrous, and precious—a sharp contrast to Ryuji, next to her, who looked like he expected to find a tarantula inside. Even Morgana got one.

There was no box for Joker.

Ann peered into the bag and saw a small, folded note lying at the bottom. She handed it to Akira, who carefully opened it and stared at the contents for far longer than it would take to read any message that could fit on a piece of paper that small.

The Thieves hesitated before opening their gifts and looked to their leader, as if waiting for his rallying command before leaping into battle. Sumire approached, with wide, shining eyes and a tight grip on her present. “Senpai?” She sounded lost for words.

Morgana walked across the tabletop and pushed his head against Akira’s hand. “Joker…”

Akira blinked, then reached up to rub his eyes, then just took his glasses off and covered his face with his hand. When his shoulders started shaking, everyone in the room started to move towards him, reaching out, half-forming the first sounds of concerned, comforting sentiments. And then they heard an utterly un-Akira-like snort, and a laugh that seemed to be punching it’s way out of him. He let Ann take the note back and slumped into the booth seat, consumed with what could only be described as helpless giggles.

“It just says ‘rematch,’ with a question mark and a time…” She said, frowning. Ann raised an eyebrow at Akira, who couldn’t seem to meet anyone’s eyes or suppress his ever-so-slightly-unhinged laughter. She rolled her eyes. “Drama queens, both of you.”

⸻⸻⸻

“...I’m amazed he remembered that time we talked about our favorite mystery authors… I don’t know how to feel, Ann. It’s a complicated situation. I’m glad he’s alive, of course, but I hate seeing Haru like this.... No, she’s alright, just — she’s spacing out a lot. Like she’s… Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that lately, too. I never really figured out what I would have wanted to do, if he hadn’t… That’s true… I don’t know. Maybe… For now, I don’t think my opinion on the matter should carry as much weight as Haru’s — or Futaba’s. I’ll wait and see what the rest of the group says.”

⸻⸻⸻

“—gonna tear that nerd a new asshole and feed it to him—sorry, Sojiro!—I can’t  _ believe  _ he seriously bought me a  _ robot vacuum _ . What a nerd!... Wha—That’s—So what if I did? When some kind of post-singularity  _ super _ A.I. reformats all  _ your  _ household appliances, do you really want to be the person who  _ didn’t name their roomba? _ ... I—Well, I’m not sure, but… Yeah.... I know… I know… I haven’t… It’s not something I think I  _ can _ forgive him for, you know? But that doesn’t mean I have to hate him, right? It’s not wrong to—to  _ not _ hate the person that killed your mom, is it? Especially if you know... Right… Yeah, it’s like, Sojiro’s the only dad I’ve got—we’re not blood-related but that doesn’t matter! Knowing who my—my  _ biological _ dad is, that wouldn’t change anything. But if I didn’t have Sojiro, I can see how things might have been.. different… Uh-huh… I know. He was younger then than I was when we went into my palace, I checked… No kidding… What?! Come on!... Hnngh, fine, if you say so.”

⸻⸻⸻

“...I’m sorry, Ann, I’m not ready to talk about it. But I promise that I won’t say or do anything to make Akira feel bad for—well, what his heart wants.”

⸻⸻⸻

Ann’s life can never be described as uneventful but the following year was packed even tighter than usual because she kept getting bowled over by life-changing revelations. 

It started in January with the realization that she wanted to do something after modeling. That was less of a transformation and more a realignment—obviously she  _ knew  _ that someday she wouldn’t be able to model anymore. Brands would decide that her look wasn’t Contemporary enough or that a newcomer had a more Fresh appeal or a dozen other socially-sanctioned ways to say too old. Modeling had no guaranteed job security or retirement plan—if you didn’t count the girls who got in, got married, and got out. To use modeling as a springboard for any other career in the public eye, most people needed an additional skill to prove their value. Singing. Acting. Something. 

January wasn’t about whether or not Ann  _ had  _ a skill like that, or what it might be, but just the realization that she didn’t want to wait around for ad executives and producers to scrutinize her body, calculate how many miles she was still good for, and decide it was time for her to become irrelevant.

February shoved romance down her throat then soothingly stroked her spine as she choked on it. She did a commercial where she was put in a wedding dress, and someone who looked nothing like her dad walked her down an aisle. A male model stood at the end with this deeply gooey expression; part smolder and part puppy dog eyes. And it’s not like she hadn’t posed with men before—all kinds of ads put her in romantic pairings, explicitly or implicitly. It wasn’t the guy or the set or the dress ( _ so  _ not what she would get married in), but still. Midway through the shoot, she was shown a preview of her and her ‘husband’ holding hands at the altar, staring at each other, and she had the thought, ‘ _ I want this. _ ’ 

It was as though she had a switch that controlled her desire to have a  _ partner _ , someone to love and be loved by in return. Back in middle school she’d first noticed it and toggled it off. Then she checked on it after everything happened with Kamoshida and left it off, letting it get covered with dust. In February she stood in front of it, taking in how it felt to have it flipped back on, and had a lot of questions for herself. 

March, never one to be outdone, brought some answers. For Akira’s birthday they went to Crossroads. Four drinks and a chain of events later, she was in a back room, sitting in front of Akira with their knees knocking together, holding his chin with one hand and a mascara wand with the other. “Stop flinching,” she hissed. “I’m almost done.”

Not like he really needed any help in the eyelashes department. Ridiculously-long-natural-lash-having asshole. Big dumb watery eyes. 

“My eyes aren’t dumb,” Akira murmured, because apparently Ann was thinking out loud. His cheeks were flushed from a combination of blush and alcohol. His skin was frustratingly smooth for someone who had, until recently, been using 3-in-1 bodywash/shampoo/conditioner in lieu of face cleanser. 

There. Now just lips. “No, Senpai’s not dumb,” Sumire cooed. She was standing behind Akira, doing something with his hair extensions. The concentration on her face almost balanced out the glassy look in her eyes. “Senpai’s really knowledgeable!”

“Erudite,” he mumbled, between lipstick and gloss.

When she finally got to see the whole look, her heart skipped a beat. He was.  _ So.. _ . Words weren’t coming easily through the fog in her brain but  _ beautiful  _ didn’t seem like a strong enough descriptor. It was definitely still Akira, but when he reached up to twist a strand of hair and ended up running his fingers down a long, loose curl, freed from the up-do that Sumire twisted the rest into… Ann took a long pull from a drink (Ryuji’s, who squawked indignantly) and wrinkled her nose—she needed  _ water _ . 

“I’ll get it,” Akira said, and sauntered off to the bar. He walked pretty smoothly for being drunk and in three inch heels. Actually, the way he weaved and swayed was kind of… a little hypnotizing, to be honest. When he leaned against the bar to let Lala inspect his make-up, he artfully crossed one foot behind his other ankle, emphasizing the curves of calves and how long his legs were. The way he seemed to roll his hips and arch his spine when he rested his elbows on the high countertop, that  _ had  _ to be deliberate. 

Ann zeroed in on the way his hemline fell against his thighs and had to look away to shake her head and remember to breathe.

Wait. What was she doing?  _ This is  _ Akira _? You know. Exclusively plays video games that came out before 1997?  _ She had half a crush on him for a bit in high school but attributed it to the whole ‘plumbing the depths of the collective unconscious’ thing. The rope ladder effect? 

She leaned over and stage-whispered, “Akechi!” He continued staring off into the distance, but with Akechi it was hard to tell if he actually hadn’t heard her or was pretending to in order to ignore her. She balled up a cocktail napkin and lobbed it in his direction. It bounced off his nose. 

Futaba said, “Bull’s eye!” and cackled at her own joke.

Akechi wasn’t laughing, but there  _ was  _ a curious pink tint high on his cheeks. He cocked an eyebrow. “Can I help you with something, Ann?” he said—not in that sugar-spun voice that she got used to hearing while they went through Sae’s palace, but not in the feral growl he used the following January either. Now he just sounded like a pretentious douchebag, which was fine, because that’s what he was.

“What’s that thing called where you think somebody’s hot because you’re like, in a life-or-death situation together?” Ann asked. Seemed like the kind of thing you learn about in whatever studying it takes to become an unbelievable know-it-all. Akechi glared. Oh, out loud again. Sorry.

“It’s ‘Misappropriation of Arousal’!” Ryuji shouted. After two drinks he lost the quiet and moderate parts of his range of volume.. “I’m taking psych classes for my license! It’s required!”

“ _ ‘Misattribution _ of Arousal,’ actually,” Makoto corrected, from where she and Haru were curled up in a plush armchair.

“The term you’re thinking of is the Suspension Bridge effect, but Nijima-san is right,” Akechi said. “What made you bring it up?”

“Tell you later!” Ann chirped, and he squinted at her and opened his mouth as if to object.

“Here’s the water you ordered, mistress,” Akira appeared behind Akechi’s chair, leaning around him to slide a cup across the table towards her. He placed a tall, curvy glass in front of him, with an unidentifiable, purple drink and a slice of lime on the rim. “And this is for you.”

“I didn’t order anything,” Akechi said, minus any of his usual deliberate undertones—no coyness, no hidden insult, nothing acidic or insinuating. Ann watched one of his hands grab the glass like a lifeline while the other clenched into a fist and vanished under the table.

“I made an educated guess,” Akira purred, visibly entertained. Akechi’s eyes narrowed and he finally turned to him, facing away from Ann. She couldn’t see his expression, but whatever was there took Akira from a cheeky little smile into a full-blown Cheshire grin. “I hope it’s to your liking,  _ master _ .”

⸻⸻⸻

Her head sucked. Her stomach sucked too. And most of all, Akechi standing in front of her wearing a headband, a windbreaker, and  _ bike shorts _ sucked. “How are you up already?” she croaked, gingerly lying down on the couch, wrapped in a duvet she had dragged from her bed.

“I went for a ride at seven,” he said. She heard the fridge door open and close. A Dr. Salt NEO landed near her hands. “Here. Electrolytes.”

“Thanks,” she sat up and started trying to comb through her hair with her fingers. “So I guess you feel fine?”

“More or less,” he said, looking up from a hamstring stretch. “What was it you were going to tell me about the Suspension Bridge effect?”

“Oh!” she paused. And waited to remember. And frowned. And— “Okay, right. I asked because back when we first started the Phantom Thieves, I thought Akira was like, cute? Probably because we could have died about a hundred times. And I haven’t thought about him as attractive—he’s good-looking, obviously, but I just didn’t think about him like that—until last night, and I was like. Woo. He’s hot all of a sudden. What’s that about?”

Akechi stared at her with the sort of blank, neutral expression that she was beginning to understand meant that there was probably a silent bomb going off in his head. Then the explosion would power a steam engine or something, and his cogs would start turning again. When he came back online, he spoke slowly, as though it took a great deal of effort to produce each word. “Why would you want to discuss your potential romantic or sexual interest in him with  _ me _ ?”

“Woah, pal, who said anything about  _ romantic or sexual interest _ ?” she rolled her eyes. “I’m not into Akira that way, I know  _ that  _ much.”

“The question remains as to what would drive you to select me to act as—”

“Oh my god, shut up and stop pretending to be an android for two seconds,” Ann snapped, shoving the duvet off her shoulders and standing. Akechi was frozen with his mouth open, while she stood over him and jabbed a scolding finger towards his face. “ _ I’m not competing with you. _ There’s nothing to worry about. Akira and I have not and  _ will not _ ever be more than friends. Okay? Jeez. You’ve literally been a detective for like, ten years. Now use your brain and help me.”

He closed his mouth. Moved as if to stand, then stopped. He was quiet long enough for Ann to have time to grab a banana from the kitchen and come back. If he  _ was _ computer-powered, Ann would think he had overheated. She could almost hear the fans. “You  _ only _ found him attractive again as of last night?”

Ann nodded.

“Before he was in drag, or after?”

“Huh. After. What, does that mean I’m not interested in  _ him _ , but in like. Men in drag, generally?”

Akechi’s hand drifted up to his chin in a vague semblance of his Signature Detective Prince Thinking Pose. Ann wondered if it was just muscle memory, like he didn’t even know he was doing it. “I don’t think that’s it. But it’s not rare for people to only feel physical attraction to others when an emotional connection is established first. Perhaps the degree of emotional intimacy is present for attraction to form, but it didn’t until last night, because…”

She waited for him to finish the sentence. He stared back at her expectantly. “Because what?” she said, taking a bite of banana. 

“Takamaki-san,” (‘ _ Uh-oh, bringing out the big formality guns now, _ ’ she thought) “is there a chance that you might be a lesbian?”

Gasping with food in your mouth is an easy way to induce choking. 

Akechi hit her with a well-timed slap on the back and unscrewed the cap on her Dr. Salt so she could take a sip when she finished coughing. “I’ve never even thought about it before,” she said. “But wow. I don’t know. Maybe! Why is that your first guess?”

He hesitated, but only for a moment, and she could see the resolve form in his eyes before he confessed, “It seems clear that your attraction may have been caused by having someone familiar recontextualized in a different presentation, but then it occurred to me… I thought that it might be the case, because… well, I’m gay.”

“Duh,” she replied instantly, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “No! I mean, I’m sorry. Start over: that’s great! Thank you for telling me. I kind of… figured.”

Akechi looked unimpressed and perhaps slightly wounded. “Really?”

“Yeah, why else do you think I would ask you about finding Akira hot?”

“I don’t  _ know _ , I  _ asked _ , and you never explained,” he sneered.

She sneered back. “Because if you had drooled over his legs in that dress any harder, Lala-chan would have made you wear a  _ bib. _ ”

“I did  _ not _ —”

And that was March. 

⸻⸻⸻

April and May were relatively calm, minus the time Ann caught a cold. Akechi was a surprisingly competent nurse until he fell ill right as she was getting better. She was able to delay a flight but he was still pretty pathetic looking when she had to leave. 

“You sure you’ll be okay with no one checking on you?” she said.

“I’m positive. I’ll sleep and have soup for a few days, then I’ll be fine. I’ve done it before,” he said, ever so bravely. ‘ _ Uh-huh _ .’ And he  _ was _ better soon after. And then Akira got sick.

Luckily everyone was symptom-free by the time June 2nd rolled around. 

The first dozen times she asked what he wanted for his birthday, he gave some acerbic non-answer like ‘some peace and quiet for once would be nice’ or ‘world peace’. As it got closer she became more insistent that they  _ were _ going to do  _ something _ to celebrate his birthday, so if he wanted to have a say in  _ what,  _ he’d better start talking. He didn’t take her seriously. She started leaving things around the apartment for him to find—a business card for a stage-magician-slash-balloon-artist; a price quote to rent an  _ elephant _ for a day, including building permit applications for the enclosure they would need to set up and a platform to climb up and ride it; and a blank order form for an independent leatherworker who did custom jobs.

He gave in and set parameters.

On June 2nd, the Thieves assembled at Penguin Sniper and played billiards. There was no cake and no singing, at his insistence. He had also said no gifts, but those who were inclined to disregard his direct orders gave their presents to Ann, who got home before he did and left them in a pile on the center of his bed. He and Akira split off to throw darts. It was a nice evening.

Two weeks later Haru called him. Akechi left the apartment early one morning, before dawn, and came back much, much later, with a sunburn on the back of his neck, dirt and sweat covering his entire body, and the kind of fire in his eyes that seemed to burn away a deep-rooted vileness and make room for new growth.

⸻⸻⸻

Mid-July Ann got into a fight with Shiho and they didn’t talk for a week. She knew she was taking it rough when everyone she saw started asking if she was okay as soon as she walked into the room. A make-up artist made a snide comment about her eye bags. Then she was in a video call with her parents and her mom asked if someone had broken up with her.

“I got in a fight with Shiho. She’s not talking to me,” Ann said.

Her mom and dad exchanged an unreadable look. “So, did Shiho break up with you?”

“Mom, Shiho and I aren’t, like,  _ together _ ,” she heard her dad say something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘news to me,’ under his breath. “Did you guys think Shiho was my girlfriend?”

They looked a little bit sheepish but admitted that, yes, they heard updates from her about Shiho every time they spoke, and Ann never talked about dating otherwise, so they assumed.

“I never even told you guys that I might… that I was, um. That I liked girls?”

Her dad sat up straighter and her mom leaned in, eyes alight. “If we’ve ever done anything to lead you to believe that we wouldn’t accept you, however you want to be, whoever to want to be with, then I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” she said fiercely. “The only thing we’ve ever been concerned about was your health and happiness. We love you, Ann, and I hope you know that.”

That was a good kind of revelation; the reminder that, no matter the distance, she had a pretty decent set of parents. 

⸻⸻⸻

August was too hot to go anywhere unless it was a work assignment or the beach. Sometimes even her bedroom was just too warm at night to get to sleep, so she would wander out to the living room and see if Goro wanted to watch something and eat ice cream.

One such night she told him about that conversation with her parents. Prefaced it merely like, “Oh, did I tell you I came out to my parents like. Three weeks ago? And they were like, ‘duh.’” And she told him how her parents had been under the impression that her and Shiho had been together, probably for the past couple of  _ years _ , and just never said anything. The whole tone was, “Isn’t that funny?”

But then he said, “Well, it makes sense. Suzui-san clearly occupies a special place to you, distinct from other friends,” and when she started to object, he went, “If I told you, ‘all of your friends are waiting for you at the park,’ do you imagine Suzui-san as part of that group? Or does it not feel quite right to lump her in with the rest as if she’s not special?”

Ann paused. “I mean, she’s my  _ best _ friend.”

Goro gave her a ‘you are being deliberately obtuse right now’ look. His ‘quit being dumb’ look. The Takamaki special. “Does  _ that _ even feel right? Don’t you have other best friends? Is she the same as the rest of them?”

“No interrogations after dinner,” Ann shot back, then fell silent, mulling over his words. She snuggled deeper into the couch and pressed her face against the pillow in her arms. Shiho  _ was _ different. She existed in a category all of her own. Akira had to be one of her best friends too—it definitely didn’t feel right to deny that. She had a best friend in Belgium that deserved the title after meeting when they were seven years old, reconnecting online when they were twelve, and staying in touch all these years. ‘ _ Hell, at this point— _ ’ she looked up and caught Goro... checking out his own goddamn nails? He turned them palm out and then back to loose, palm-up fists. Ugh, did he even have polish on or was he just looking at the  _ shape?  _ “You’re right. I do have other best friends, and now one of them is a  _ prissy neatfreak _ who has more skincare products than a  _ department store _ —ow! I bet they’re alphabetized—Agh! Pfah! Oh no, not the hair  _ not the hair! _ ”

⸻⸻⸻

Autumn wasn’t a hiatus from work  _ or _ self-discovery, and she made a lot of progress towards understanding what she wanted out of life. Every milestone reminded her of when she first awoke to Carmen; it was exhausting and electrifying and made her want to keep charging forward as much as it made her need a long weekend to sleep in.

Then Winter came and made it all worthwhile. Ann got to make the call that had her parents smiling and rolling their eyes: she and Shiho actually  _ were _ , finally, officially together. “Took long enough,” in her dad’s words. She was walking around on clouds for weeks, just buoyant, weightless with happiness. Everything good and beautiful seemed to jump out and wave, like the universe saw her smiling and was smiling back at her. Every day was a good hair day. Even Akechi’s burnt instant coffee tasted—well, safe to drink, and that was enough of an improvement. She had a wonderful girlfriend, amazing friends, loving parents, and she was bursting with appreciation for all of it. She was dancing through life. She was—

“Insufferable,” Goro called from another room when she started singing while she did the dishes. “Shut up or go be happy somewhere else!”

“Love you too,  _ honey!” _ she yelled back. 

He appeared in the doorway to the kitchen looking thunderous. “I should have never told you about that, you harpy.”

“Aww, but it’s so cute! Imagine if he came over  _ here _ and I—”

“—will make you  _ rue the day _ —”

“—got you guys to stop dancing around it and kiss already? What did Futaba call it? UST?”

“Akira and I do  _ not  _ have unresolved sexual tension,” he said stiffly. “I’m taking my laptop and I’m going out.”

“To go work at the counter at Leblanc? Or maybe at a booth? Or in the attic, or even like, on the stairs if you just can’t contain yourself anymore—”

The door slammed behind him.

⸻⸻⸻

Ann continued to radiate joy and Goro continued to be put off by it. His patience, if tracked on a graph, would look like it was rapidly diminishing at an accelerating rate until one day it seemed to jump straight to the top, turn ninety degrees, and stay full. 

From December 18th onwards, he had no complaints about her belting out Christmas pop songs all around the apartment. He didn’t make a face (that she saw) when she enlisted him to help wrap presents, put up decorations, or frost cookies. When she made a big pot of hot cocoa and then sat on the couch all day, whining and begging him to get her refills so she wouldn’t have to get up, he accommodated every request.

“I don’t buy it. You were basically the Grinch like four days ago, what happened?” She caught him at a time when he couldn’t just walk away from her questioning: in the bath. The tub and shower were on the other side of a sliding, frosted glass door from where she was sitting, perched on the edge of the sink with her feet on the top of the toilet’s closed lid. The downside was that she couldn’t see his face and look for clues, but on the plus side, there was no way for him to escape. “Did the Holiday Spirit move in you? Are you terminally ill? Do you secretly love Christmas, but you were being such a dick at the start of the month that you couldn’t just embrace it without looking like a huge hypocrite?”

The only response was water sloshing. She mimed putting on a hat, even if she knew he couldn’t see it, and tried to think like a detective. He started being way grouchier than usual when she got together with Shiho, but not right away. More like… after he got tired of being happy for her? 

“Oh my god, I’m right,” she said, imagining equations and latin symbols rushing around her head. “You stopped shitting on me for being happy all the time so you could avoid being called a hypocrite, like, um, before the fact.”

“Preemptively,” he offered from the bath.

“Thank you, exactly,” she said, getting up so she could pace while she worked out her theory. 

“But it wouldn’t be hypocritical to just enjoy Christmas stuff after being so grumpy about my good vibes. I was in such a positive mood because I’m still high off new relationship energy...” She stopped, facing the door, and laid her accusation out in front of it. “You’ve got a date.”

The increased water sloshing suggested he was getting out. She had him. He knew she had him, and he was going to try to make a getaway. She waited, listening carefully, and lined up her next shot.

“You’re going out with Akira,” she said, and tried to not derive  _ too  _ much pleasure from the sound of skin slipping on wet tile, something banging into ceramic, pained hissing and expletives. Got him. “I’ll be in the living room.”

He emerged, wreathed in steam, wearing satin pajamas and an imperious expression. “It’s not a date,” he insisted. “It’s just a friendly outing, the same kind that could take place on any other calendar day in the year—”

“Pedantic,” which was a word he would live to regret teaching her.

“We’re just going to the aquarium,” he said, like a  _ liar. _

“You’re going to go to a famous date spot that’s going to be packed with couples,” she said.

“Technically going back, since we went there together once before.”

“But this time on Christmas.”

“That’s correct.”

“The number one romantic holiday in the country and the anniversary of that time he  _ made a wish to bring you back to life? _ ”

“That’s not really what happened, you  _ do _ know that, right?”

“Close enough,” she said, waving it off. “Are you going to tell him he  _ occupies a special place _ inside you or whatever?”

Goro glared at her from his side of the couch. She smiled sweetly and pressed her ice-cold toes against his ankles. He yelped.

In the end, she extracted one promise for a full after-action mission debriefing (subject to redactions, terms and conditions apply) and agreed, in exchange, to help find a new outfit that didn’t include argyle or sweater vests of any kind. He  _ had _ taste, it just didn’t extend to fashion. He was also maybe a little bit nice when he wasn’t being an asshole. 

Weird to think she almost didn’t get to know him. To think he could have actually died all the way back in Shido’s palace, and he wouldn’t have been here for moments like this. The thought chilled her, clenched her heart in a vice to make an indent where the mourning would have gone, and filled that space in with protectiveness and admiration and love. “Good luck on your ‘outing.’ I’m really happy for you,” she said, and reached over and squeezed his arm. He surprised her by permitting a rare, holiday-special hug. 

⸻⸻⸻

Shortly before midnight on December 25th, Ann arrived home to a dark apartment and did a little victory dance on Goro’s behalf. Shiho would have come over, but her family had some day-after-Christmas tradition that she couldn’t skip out on.

He spent the night after their  _ first _ date (depending on how you define date). There was no question of  _ if _ Ann was going to tease him about it, the issue was  _ how.  _

Well, she had until the next morning to come up with some good opening lines. For now, she wanted some chamomile tea before bed. 

And you can’t have tea without cake, of course.

Half an hour later she was picking at crumbs when the door opened… But not the front door? She wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t been facing the entrance to Goro’s room; he didn’t make a single noise. Not even when he turned and saw her staring at him from the kitchen table, although he did flinch.

“Nice facemask,” he said quietly. It was mint green, aloe-based, and supposedly purifying  _ and _ refreshing.

“Thanks,  _ why are you here? _ ” she demanded. He walked past her and into the kitchen. She grabbed her cake plate and followed. “Goro. Explain.”

He held up a packet of instant ramen and shrugged. “Skipped dinner.”

Ann didn’t have a default ‘stop being dumb’ face to make at him, because he usually wasn’t this  _ dumb _ . “I meant on your date and you knew that.”

“The aquarium was fine. Had a good time,” he said, trying to ignore her in favor of the stovetop. 

She stopped prodding and watched him go through the motions of boiling noodles. He didn’t look… shattered? Goro was a lot easier to read, or she had become more fluent, but sometimes he pulled back, retreated behind old walls, and shut her out. 

Somehow, though, that’s not what this looked like either. Waiting it out wasn’t going to get her anywhere—Goro didn’t fold in the face of long silence, never seemed to feel the need to fill the air. “...And… What about Akira?”

The sincere tone of voice made him look her in the eye, at least. He sighed. “He had a good time, too,” he admitted, and shifted the focus of his gaze to the kitchen counter. “It.... He must be—there has to be something  _ really _ wrong with him.”

“Huh?” Not that Ann necessarily disagreed—for all that she loved Akira like an incomprehensible brother, only Futaba outmatched him in cryptid qualities.

Goro crossed his arms over his chest. He looked younger than usual, more vulnerable. “For him to actually think… to want to be with  _ me _ ,” he said, glaring at the granite. “He trusts too easily or fakes it too well.”

“Or he knows you and he likes you and that’s enough for him,” she countered. “It’s hard to know how he feels about stuff he does to help his friends sometimes, sure. I’ve dragged him into stores that didn’t sell  _ anything _ that might interest him, and he never looks like he doesn’t want to be there. But it’s different when it’s you—you can see it, right? He’s not just ‘putting up’ with  _ anything _ when you’re around. He’s happy, and  _ you’re _ happy when you quit overthinking it, and you’re both really cute together.”

“Thanks.”

Ann whipped around and discovered Akira himself a few feet from the kitchen entrance. “Woah! Wh-when did you… get here?” She asked, starting to piece clues together.

(Them both being in pajamas was a pretty strong hint.)

Akira scratched the back of his neck and didn’t answer in words.

“Oh, since—earlier. Right! Wow, I’m so—” she faked a yawn and heard Goro’s palm connect with his forehead somewhere behind her. “— _ so _ tired, I’m going to sleep, you guys should go to bed soon tooahhhnevermind  _ good night! _ ”

She scrambled to her room and paused at the door, indulging in the urge to eavesdrop, just for a moment. If she peeked around the corner between the hallway and the kitchen, she could just see them from the shoulders up over the counter. She saw their heads bowed,close together, and Goro’s hand tightly gripping Akira’s shirt above his collarbone.

“Did she just  _ say _ ‘yawn’? Instead of…” Akira’s voice was low and she could hear the smile in it.

Goro made an exasperated noise. “She did, and she’s  _ still listening _ , so careful about—”

And she slipped into her room and shut the door.

The Phantom Thieves Annual Holiday Dinner was a few days away, and she couldn’t wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a separate document of seeds for 'side dishes' to this yuletide meal. Writing this was fun as hell but it was also like... walking a Great Dane with a leash made out of dental floss.


End file.
